Billionaire Boys Club Head Gets a No-Parole Life Term

Billionaire Boys Club leader Joe Hunt was sentenced Monday to life in state prison without the possibility of parole by a judge who said the gas chamber would have been “appropriate” for the boy-genius turned killer.

The unflappable Hunt--manacled at the wrists, pale and clad in prison blues with his hair shorn--smiled as Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Laurence J. Rittenband pronounced the sentence, which had been recommended by the jury after a 2 1/2-month trial. He appeared to be more interested in slipping a note from a friend into a paperback novel he carried.

Hunt, 27, was convicted in April of the 1984 robbery and shotgun slaying of Beverly Hills con man Ron Levin, 42, who had double-crossed him in a commodities-trading scheme. Witnesses testified that Hunt bragged of having forced the frightened Levin to sign over a $1.5-million check drawn on a Swiss bank account, and then killing him and dumping his body in a remote area of the Angeles National Forest. Levin’s body has not been found.

‘Paradox Philosophy’

The case had attracted wide attention because the charismatic Hunt played Pied Piper to the sons of dozens of affluent Westside Los Angeles families who subscribed to his “paradox philosophy,” an ethical system in which good and evil are relative and sometimes interchangeable terms.

Dubbing themselves the “Billionaire Boys Club,” the attractive, well-educated young men quickly amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars, much of it from their parents, then lost it all to high-living and bad investments, according to court testimony.

In an emotional statement to the judge and spectators before the sentencing, Martin Levin, the victim’s stepfather, spoke of his family’s difficulty in talking about a son “brutally murdered by a cold-blooded assassin” and the questions that still haunt them about the way he died.

“I have anger and contempt for this man who killed my son, our son,” he said, his voice breaking. “I just hope he stays in prison the rest of his life and feels the things that we feel.”

The judge then imposed the maximum sentence permitted by law, citing the “overwhelming evidence of your (Hunt’s) guilt” and the absence of any explanation for several pieces of incriminating evidence linking him to the crime.

“Have a good time while you’re there (in prison),” the victim’s brother, Robert Levin, yelled as Hunt was led from the courtroom, and a shouting match broke out between Hunt and Levin supporters.

The 11 women and one man on the jury had quickly agreed on Hunt’s guilt but were sharply divided on whether he should receive life without parole or death, the only choices possible in such a “special circumstance” case. The special circumstance alleged was murder in the course of a robbery. But after three days of deliberations, they decided on the lesser sentence, arguing that in many ways life behind bars would be greater punishment for Hunt than a quick death.

Defense attorney Arthur Barens said he has appealed Rittenband’s denial of his motion for a new trial. If Hunt’s conviction is not reversed, he could be released only by a change in law, commutation of his sentence by the governor or the reappearance of Ron Levin.

Alleged Triggerman

Jury selection is now under way in the retrial of Hunt’s bodyguard, Jim Pittman, the alleged triggerman in the murder. Pittman’s first trial ended with a hung jury.

Hunt and Pittman also face trial in the 1984 kidnap-murder of wealthy Iranian Hedayat Eslaminia in Northern California, along with co-defendants Ben Dosti and Reza Eslaminia. Eslaminia, the victim’s son, and Dosti are scheduled to go to trial in Redwood City on Aug. 24.

Hunt did not take the stand during his trial. However, in a statement given to a deputy probation officer for a pre-sentencing report, he insisted that “I’m not guilty; I’m innocent of this crime.

“I wanted to take the stand and explain myself,” Hunt said. “I had prepared 100 pages, single-spaced typewritten questions, for my attorney to ask me, cross-referenced to over 70 documents. I thought I was taking the stand on Sunday, the defense rested on Monday.”

‘Declined to Testify’

Rittenband reminded Hunt on Monday that he had “categorically declined to testify and did expressly waive your right to do so.”

“It would have been nice if you had testified,” Rittenband told him. “We all would have liked to hear your explanation of the seven yellow pages of notes you made that the prosecution characterized as a ‘recipe for murder’ and the possession by Pittman at the Plaza Hotel in New York of Ron Levin’s credit cards and Pittman posing as Levin to establish as a fact the fiction that Levin was in New York rather than in a grave in Soledad Canyon.”

He was referring to papers in Hunt’s handwriting and bearing Hunt’s fingerprints that were found in Levin’s Beverly Hills duplex. The seven pages listed such items as “close blinds, scan for tape recorder, tape mouth, handcuff, put gloves on, explain situation, kill dog,” and to a plan to make it appear that Levin had disappeared in New York.

‘Ruthless, Extremely Dangerous’

Deputy Probation Officer Roger Muelbach concluded that Hunt is “intelligent, sophisticated, ruthless and extremely dangerous” and recommended a maximum term in state prison.

Several jurors who attended Monday’s sentencing agreed. Said Marsha Deeg, a data communications specialist from Marina del Rey: “He was cold. He was callous. He was an arrogant son-of-a-bitch. He showed no emotion, no caring. All his interest was self-centered.

“We wanted the worst for Joe Hunt. Death is too easy.”